Flux core welders are burning up tips, insulators, and leads

We've changed whips numerous times, doubled up on the grounds, replaced the feed wheels and checked the feed wheel pressure, which is good, double checked the liners in the whips, and now we are at a standstill. Also checked our argon supply gas and mixing valves, which are all fine.

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You should have one contactor for the wire feed. And the tip should be hot all of the time. Trace the connections. The conductive strap from the gun whould go to one side of the main transformer secondary winding- usually to the current selector center contact.

If you disregard the diodes for a moment- the circuit completes through the ground lead. Somewhere, and it may be where the gun assembly attaches to the feed mechanism that the whole unit is shorting out- Is part of the cable from the assembly contacting the cabinet? Did you remove the feed assembly and were there insulating washers present? One of those may be knicked. Did a screw of the wrong length get put in?

The rectifiers can go into the circuit either way depending how you want it polarized- or omitted even to weld AC. Normally the rectifiers would go on the supply side, and not the ground- so it would be located betwee the current/heat switch and the strap that goes to the gun. Unless you put the insulting hardware on to islate the rectifiers from the heat sink. That heat sink is likely live that the rectifiers are mounted on, and as a result, you are shorting out the transformer. You can either iloate the heat sink with phenolic board and plasticscrews and nuts to attach to frame Or get the isolating hardware and iaolate the rectifers from the heat sink.

The grounding cable is the only thing that should be a metal to metal contact with the frame of the welder.

The other difference between gas/gasless is the ability to reverse the gun polarity which you can't do with a gasless only welder. You can get it to work but not safely and reliability could be an issue also.

If you are using flux core wire you need to switch the polarity of the machine. With flux core wire, your ground clamp becomes positive (lead) and your gun the ground. All you need to do is switch the cables above the feed rolls.

Sometimes the drive motor collect a lot of metal dust from the environment and it requires a clean up. Take the tensor off and remove all wire, try to apply compressed air into it and then apply WD40 and run it. Make sure your tensor wheel it's not to tight and that you are using the right wheel size for the wire in use. Another problem rely on the gun liner if this one hasn't been change in 12 months, it is time to replace it, or, if it is not kinked at all, try to use clean air to blast out all metal particles from it. (take off you gas nozzle and gas mixer also known as contact tip holder).
Good luck.
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have you tried adjusting the tension on the flux wire? before you start feeding the wire into it make sure there isnt any kinks in the wire. seems like it doesnt take much for it to bind up once you get start welding with it im sure you will run into this problem quite allot. usually its from welding the wire to the tip. i have to be honest it can ve a pain in the ***

I have found that keeping the gun lead as straight as possible fixes this problem. Also it is sometimes recommended to use one tip size bigger when welding with flux core wire. My last spool was radnor flux core wire .030, and a .035 tip keeping the lead as straight as possible and it welded extremely well. If that doesn't solve it you should take everything apart and clean it / blow it out with compressed air.

The only thing you need to do is change the tip to the 0.30, and feed the wire. If no 0.30 tip is included with the welder it just isn't designed for that wire. You will also need to flip your friction feed wheel at the box to match the diameter.

Is your grab rollers tight? Is it a new liner in the lead? If you are using .035 wire you can use a .045 tip. I generally use one size larger then what is required. You have a lot less problems that way. When you use flux core wire on most wirefeeds you have to reverse your positive and negative leads inside of the welder I assume you did that? If there is any moisture inside of the liner it can stick because it is grounding out when you start to weld.